Acts 6:9-10

Many different synagogues existed in Jerusalem at this time (cf. Acts 24:12). The Talmud said there were 390 of them before the Romans destroyed the city. [Note: See Fiensy, p. 234.] Other rabbinic sources set the number at 460 and 480, but these may be exaggerations. [Note: See Edersheim, The Life . . ., 1:119.] Like local churches today, they tended to attract people with similar backgrounds and preferences. Many families that had experienced liberation from some kind of slavery or servitude evidently populated the Synagogue of the Freedmen. Some scholars believe that as many as five synagogues are in view in this reference, but the best interpretation seems to be that there was just one. [Note: See Riesner, pp. 204-6.]

"The Freedmen were Roman prisoners (or the descendants of such prisoners) who had later been granted their freedom. We know that a considerable number of Jews were taken prisoner by the Roman general Pompey and later released in Rome, and it is possible that these are meant here." [Note: Marshall, The Acts . . ., p. 129. See also Barrett, pp. 323-24.]

These people had their roots in North Africa (Cyrene and Alexandria) and Asia Minor (Cilicia and Asia). Thus these were Hellenistic Jews, the group from which Stephen himself probably came. Since Saul of Tarsus was from Cilicia, perhaps he attended this synagogue, though he was not a freed man. The leading men in this congregation took issue with Stephen whom they had heard defend the gospel. Perhaps he, too, attended this synagogue. However they were unable to defeat him in debate. Stephen seems to have been an unusually gifted defender of the faith, though he was not one of the Twelve. He was a forerunner of later apologists. God guided wise Stephen by His Spirit as he spoke (cf. Luke 21:15).

This is the first occurrence in Acts of someone presenting the gospel in a Jewish synagogue. Until now we have read that the disciples taught and preached in the temple and from house to house (Acts 5:42). We now learn that they were also announcing the good news in their Jewish religious meetings. Paul normally preached first in the synagogue in towns he evangelized on his missionary journeys.

"While not minimizing the importance of the apostles to the whole church, we may say that in some way Stephen, Philip, and perhaps others of the appointed seven may well have been to the Hellenistic believers what the apostles were to the native-born Christians." [Note: Longenecker, p. 335.]